Passetyme with good cumpanye Hunte, syng, & daunce, All godely sport To my comfort, Who shall me lett? "Yowth woll have neds dalyaunce For idelnes Ys cheff mastres Of vices all: Than who can say "Company with honestè Ys vertu, and vyce to flee; But every man hath hys fre wyll. The best insew, The worst eschew, My mynd shall be : Vertu to use, Vyce to refuse, I shall use me." i. e. Until. i. e. Grudge whoso. i. e. Passe-tems, pastime. A more undoubted sample of his majesty's style in epistolary composition may be produced from Cotton MS. Vespasian, F. xiii, an original letter addressed to Wolsey while in the plenitude of courtly power: "Myne awne good Cardinall, "I recomande me unto you with all my hart, and thanke you for the grette payne and labour that yow do dayly take in my bysynes and maters; desyryng yow (that wen yow have well establyssyd them) to take summe pastyme and comfort, to the intente yow may the lenger endure to serve us: for allways payne can nott be induryd. Surly yow have so substancyally orderyd oure maters, bothe off thys syde the see and byonde, that in myne oppynion lityll or no thyng can be addyd. Nevertheles, accordyng to your desyre, I do send you myne oppynyon by thys berare: the refformacion wheroff I do remyte to you and the remnante of our trusty consellors, whyche I am sure wyll substantially loke on hyt. As tochyng the mater that syr Wyllyam Sanys broght answar off, I am well contentyd with what order so ever you do take in itt. "The quene, my wyff, hathe desyryd me to make har most harty reccommendations to you, as to hym that she lovethe very well; and bothe she and I wolde knowe fayne when yow wyll repayre to us7. "Mr. Andrews remarks, that Wolsey could be "all things to all men," and to Henry he was a facetious pleasant companion. According to Polidore Virgil, he must have had a singular art "No more to yow att thys tyme; but that, with Gods helpe, I trust we shall dysapoynte oure enymys off theyre intendyd purpose. "Wrytten with the hand off your lovyng master, HENRY R. (To my Lorde Cardinall.) in reconciling studies of very dissonant natures; for while he rendered his house voluptatum omnium sacrarium, yet he perpetually counselled the monarch to apply himself to school-divinity; hence the works of Thomas Aquinas became the study of the inconsistent Henry, who was blinded by the artifices of his favourite. Cardinal Wolsey, says Nash, first gave others a light to his own overthrow. How it prospered with him and his instruments, that after wrought for themselves, chronicles largely report, though not apply. Life of J. Wilton, 1594. QUEEN ANNE. BOLEYN, [A LADY of distinguished breeding, beauty, and modesty, was descended, on the father's side, says lord Herbert 3, from one of the heires of the earles of Ormonde, and, on the mother's, from a daughter of the house of Norfolke; of that singular towardnesse, that her parents took all care possible for her good education. Therefore, besides the ordinary parts of virtuous instructions wherewith she was liberally brought up, they gave her teachers in playing on musical instruments, singing, and dancing; insomuch, that when she composed her hands to play, and voice to sing, it was joined with that sweetness of countenance that three harmonies concurred; likewise, when she danced, her rare proportions varied themselves into all the graces that belong either to rest or motion 4. These fatal attractions are known to have drawn the affection of Henry the eighth from Catharine of Arragon, after a marriage of eighteen years, and • See Appendix to Hearne's Avesbury, p. 354. From Cavendish's Life of Cardinal Wolsey. The beauty and graces of Anne Boleyn had been admired from her tenderest years. She had attended on queen Claude, wife to Francis I. of France, and after her death had been protected by the duchess d'Alençon, a lady of an unblemished character. Andrews' Hist. vol. ii. p. 252. |